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Religion

One hallmark of the American experience captured in the Museum's collections is the nation's broad diversity of religious faiths. Artifacts range from Thomas Jefferson's Bible to a huge "Sunstone" sculpture carved for a Mormon temple in Illinois in 1844 to a household shrine from the home of a Pueblo Indian in the 1990s. Furniture, musical instruments, clothing, cooking ware, and thousands of prints and figures in the collections have all played roles in the religious lives of Americans. The most comprehensive collections include artifacts from Jewish and Christian European Americans, Catholic Latinos, Protestant Arab Americans, Buddhist and Christian Asian Pacific Americans, and Protestant African Americans. One notable group is the Vidal Collection of carved figures known as santos and other folk religious material from the practice of Santeria in Puerto Rico.

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La Malinche, the title of this lithograph, was the indigenous woman who translated for Cortés between Maya, Náhuatl, and Spanish during his first years in Mexico. Considered either as a traitor or a founding mother by some Mexicans, La Malinche was Cortés's lover and the mother of his favorite son Martín. She and Moctezuma are also central figures in the Matachines dances that are performed in Mexico and New Mexico. Originally commemorating the expulsion of the Moors from southern Spain in 1492, the dance was brought to Mexico where it was treated as a means for Christianizing native peoples. The historical figure of La Malinche, known in Spanish by the name Doña Marina, is also credited for playing an almost miraculous role in the early evangelization of central Mexico. This print, made by Jean Charlot in the 1933, shows a young girl in the role of La Malinche, holding a rattle or toy in one hand, and a sword in the other. Jean Charlot, a French-born artist, lived and studied in Mexico in the 1920s and 1930s. He depicted stylized scenes from the daily life of Mexican workers, particularly indigenous women.

Noah's Ark, an Old Testament story, appealed to 19th-century children as part of their Bible study. The animals also appeared in the form of games and toys. Prints of religious scenes and other uplifting subjects were recommended as encouraging moral improvement, especially for the benefit of children. Currier and Ives published half-a-dozen different versions of Noah's Ark in several sizes. The firm issued hundreds of religious prints featuring Christian subjects for both Catholic and Protestant devotions. A number of these images were produced with titles in Spanish and French for immigrants and for foreign markets.

The firm of Currier and Ives was an important publisher of American lithographs. Nathaniel Currier produced his first prints in the 1830s and, after 1857 with his partner James M. Ives, enjoyed great success publishing what the firm advertised as "cheap, popular pictures for the people." Currier and Ives produced more than 7,000 titles over nearly eight decades, and their name has become synonymous with the 19th-century American popular print.

Charcoal sketch on paper. A large cross is surrounded by several smaller crosses, some bearing wreaths or ribbons, in the foreground. A group of soldiers is resting among the crosses. Some men appear to be eating. A group of soldiers, on foot and on horseback, ascend a small hill in the background. At the end of this procession is a large piece of artillery. On the right of the sketch is a crater; some soldiers are walking up and out of the depression while others are at work inside the crater.

New Testament owned by James H. Stetson, who was killed at the Battle of Gettysburg.

General History

The Battle of Gettysburg was a critical turning point in the American Civil War. During the first three days of July 1863, over 172,000 men and 634 cannons were positioned in an area encompassing 25 square miles. An estimated 569 tons of ammunition were expended and, when the battle had ended, the losses toped 51,000 in dead and wounded soldiers on both sides. While the Confederate army retreated after Gettysburg, the war would drag on another two years. It would be the most costly battle ever fought on U.S. soil. The battle was commemorated by Abraham Lincoln’s legendary address. Lincoln stated: “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who died here that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have hallowed it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” The world has remembered both the battle and Lincoln’s eloquent words.

Painted by an anonymous artist in New Mexico, this Catholic devotional image depicts the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe.

According to tradition, the Virgin of Guadalupe first appeared to Juan Diego, a Christian Indian, on a hilltop near Mexico City in 1531. His vision of a dark-haired, brown-skinned Virgin Mary was popularized by Spanish missionaries seeking to convert Indians to Christianity. Over time, Our Lady of Guadalupe became a cherished symbol of Mexican and Latin American identity.

Noah's ark toys [such as this one] have a long tradition in American culture, with many variation of the stylistic theme. Often, as here, they consist of a house on a flatboat and contain several animals. This one has a roof set on a cloth hinge. Opened, 13 small wooden animals are revealed, including a moose. It is likely that some of the animals are missing, as each animal is a single rather than part of a pair, unlike the Old Testament story. The windows and decoration are hand-painted and the piece is signed "Bentley J. Park, Searsport, Maine, March 4, 1888." Rooted in Puritan belief that children should be seen and not heard, especially on Sabbath, the only permissable toys after attending church were those with biblical themes.

In the days before public schooling, home education was more of a necessity than a choice. This toy was inventoried by the donor in 1965 as part of the contents of the Bass Harbor Country Store sent to the Smithsonian Institution. Why this toy was left on the store shelf more than 75 years after its creation must remain subject to conjecture. Considering that the store was located on Mount Desert Island, which was becoming a popular destination for wealthy tourists at the time it was made, perhaps by a worker in a local shipbuilding concern made it to augment support for his family at home, or perhaps it was an antique purchased by the store owner at a later date to provide ambiance reminiscent of a world undergoing rapid change.

This fan from Knoxville, Tennessee, is dated to the 1970s. It depicts an image of Martin Luther King Jr., John Kennedy, and Robert Kennedy on one side, titled "Freedom Fighters," and an advertisement for Reed’s Mortuary on the other. Handheld fans were often used in churches across America, particularly southern Protestant congregations. Church fans often included depictions of religious or famous figures of the past and present on the front, and information from local businesses on the back. They were at once devotional objects, connections between churches and social movements such and civil rights, and an effective advertising medium. The fans were usually made with paper, cardboard, wood, and ink.

Like many immigrants of other origins, the congregants of Holy Cross in Bridgeport, Connecticut found work during the first World War in city port and manufacturing facilities supporting the war effort. Worshipping in their church, newly built in 1915, they remembered small centuries-old chapels left behind in the mountains of their native villages. During services, thoughts naturally turned to the uncertain destiny of friends and family left behind and the national identity those people would assume at the conclusion of the war. Whatever the outcome, they continued to celebrate the Eucharist as they had learned in childhood, sharing wine out of this cup as they heard intonement from their priest in their native Slavic language the instructions of Jesus to his disciples: “Drink of it, all of you: for this is my blood of covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”(Matthew, ch. 26, v. 28).

There was much to forgive: misunderstanding of immigration officials and census takers who identified them as “Austrians,” general prejudice of Americans against new coworkers of Slavic descent, being forced to speak German to foremen from similar national origins, and later offspring not attending Slovenian-language services because they only knew English and had moved out to the suburbs. This chalice was rescued, with painted plaster wall murals, from the church before it was destroyed by urban renewal in 1972. A new Holy Cross was built in neighboring Fairfield, Connecticut with services offered in English.

But for members of the older generation, memories remained of the old church and of Catholic fraternal meetings which provided financial, educational, and emotional support and lessons in democratic responsibility which would propel some to future political leadership in the city and beyond.